Our new training year is about to begin! What are your goals for 2025?
2024 was a year where we achieved a lot as a group.
What will you achieve in 2025 that will change your life?
Start Date
Classes begin on Monday the 20th of January.
As usual, we will be opening the doors at 5pm for free-practice and warm-up. Class will begin at 5:30pm and run until 7pm.
Remember though, our Tuesday class has moved – we now train on Monday’s and Thursday’s. Please take note of this change.
T-Shirts
Big thanks again to everyone who supported the t-shirt order just before Christmas. We can’t wait to see everyone in class with the range of colours – very exciting indeed.
We have two shirts still to be collected. You’ll know who you are, so come grab your shirts in class.
Test Dates
Our first rank test for 2025 will be in March/April, then July/August and finally October/November.
If you train hard and practice outside regular class, you should be able to achieve 3 tests per year until you reach Blue or Green belt. Once you reach Brown belt, tests will be a minimum of 18mo apart.
If you need a refresher of what you need to learn, check the curriculum pages.
Student Drive for 2025
We wany more smiling faces to our classes!
If you know anyone who might be interested, please invite them to try our classes – remember the first 10 classes are free
We will have printed flyers available in class also. Please hand these to interested people. We can provide PDF copies if you’d like to email or share on social media.
Banking Information
For any new students who need the details, our class bank account is:
Bank: Kiwibank
Acct Name: RYUKYU KEMPO KARATE
Acct Number: 38-9012-0728171-00
Suggested Donations are:
Kids / Students: $30 per school term
Adults: $60 per school term
Again, we would also like to shout out thanks to those people who have donated beyond the suggested amounts – it means a lot and we are very grateful.
If you’re a new member and have been attending for 10 classes or more, please consider adding your donation to the account. Feel free to chat with us if you have any questions or concerns.
Social Media Links:
You can find more information and learning material on these links:
General Information:
(We’ll keep this here for people to refer to)
Uniforms:
A few people have been asking where to get uniforms, so let’s look at what the options are:
- Trackies and T’s
Plain black track pants and a plain black or white TShirt are perfectly fine for training – this is the cheapest option. I haven’t checked lately, but if I’m still correct, The Warehouse have budget brand trackies and tees for about $10ea. This is perfectly fine, and for students who aren’t sure they want to invest in a full uniform, this is the best option.
- Dojo TShirt
From time to time we will place orders for dojo tshirts. These will be well publicised and cost around $45 per shirt. The colours available are:
White
Grey
Green
Blue
Pink
Coral
T-shirt prints have the dojo kanji on the front, and big logo on the rear:
- Karate Uniforms
If you wish to have a full uniform, you have the choice of either an all-white or all-black uniform. Check out the links below for places to purchase:
Belts:
Following the donations-based approach, we have a few options for belts
- Belt Library
We would like to establish a “belt library”. The idea is simple. Unless you wish to keep each and every belt you earn, when you’re done with a belt, you donate it to the library and we can recycle it back to another student in the future. At the moment, we only have a few belts of a few colours, so this will take time to build up a stock.
If you’ve got belts you would like to donate to the library, please drop them to us in class.
- Borrowed/Gifted
If you’d like to lend or gift one of your belts to a fellow student, feel free to make those arrangements with the instructors. For example, if ‘Bob’ is an orange belt, and ‘Bill’ is a yellow belt, ‘Bob” can gift “bill” his Orange belt when ‘Bob’ grades to purple. ‘Bill’ still has to test, but he gets to wear ‘Bob’s’ gifted belt when ‘Bill’ passes the test.
- New Belts
If you prefer new, we can order new belts or provide links for you to order them yourselves. Sizing belts can be a tricky affair – it’s really easy to get confused and order the wrong size. We’re happy to help and in time, I hope to buy a set of “test belts” for people to try on for size.
Training Equipment:
The biggest expense for people is always the gear. Remember, we aim to keep this as affordable as possible.
The following gear is needed as students progress:
Beginners:
Mouthguard and gloves – any sports mouthguard is fine. Consult a dentist for further information if you have braces or dental problems. For gloves, we use Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) gloves – these are lightly padded, fingerless gloves and are (unfortunately) one of the most expensive pieces of equipment. Until students have both, and wear them in class, we have to restrict some levels of training for safety reasons.
Bo Staff:
The first weapons people need will be a 1.8m staff. The cheapest and easiest way to buy one is at Mitre 10 or Bunnings (link for Bunnings) – dowel is about half the price of a hardwood staff, however they do break. If you can afford a full bo/staff, please consider purchasing one as it will be cheaper in the long run.
Students under 1.5m tall: Youth Bo
Above 1.5m tall: Regular Tapered Bo